


in the vastness of space

by annhamilton



Series: here with me [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), MCU, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Documentaries, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Falling In Love, Idiots in Love, M/M, and he's not there to be bucky's therapist, deep talks, deep talks everywhere, im a hoe for found families, sam is not there to be second choice for bucky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-25 00:34:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22007044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annhamilton/pseuds/annhamilton
Summary: Bucky feels like he falls apart every Tuesday but Sam doesn't seem to mindIn which Bucky travels the world, learns about space, learns how to keep breathing, finds his family, gives an amazing foot massage, and gets his man.(Or how to use dumb science facts to get Sam to fall in love with you)
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Sam Wilson
Series: here with me [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1584094
Comments: 6
Kudos: 87





	in the vastness of space

**Author's Note:**

> i did a bit of research and fact checking of what i've seen in documentaries for this fic but if im like seriously wrong please let me know.

The thing with Sam is that he keeps touching Bucky. They’re living in some old house in Montana on the run from everyone but this is where Bucky’s mind is. Where it stays for too long. Right on Sam. 

It started simple; a guiding hand on his back. Bucky still wasn’t used to warm hands that were kind but Sam’s was. It was gently urging him forward. Bucky went into the safehouse, one-armed and damaged, forcing himself not to think too much about it. 

People touched each other, it didn’t mean anything. So why was Bucky keeping track of each and every time Sam touched him. 

A hand on his shoulder in passing, in comfort. A hand on his forearm, tugging him back. Pressing his entire body against Bucky in the morning when Bucky was standing in front of the coffee-maker to get him to move over—and get his heart pounding, make him feel like his skin didn’t fit right. 

Steve was in bed and Nat and Wanda were out. Bucky never asks where, he doesn’t deserve to know. Bucky flipped on the TV and put on a documentary about sharks. 

“You know it’s Shark Week,” Sam said and sat down on the other side of the small couch. “I didn’t think we’d be on the run for so long.” 

“I’m sorry,” Bucky said because so much of this was his fault. 

“Not your fault, not even sure it’s entirely Zemo’s, I don’t think it’s Ross’s either, or the UN we can’t be freelancers but,” Sam ran a hand over his head. “I don’t know.”

Bucky nodded. He watched as the team on TV planned a dive. He didn’t know what to say. So he didn’t say anything at all. Sam kicked his feet up on Bucky’s lap, trying to lighten the mood. He surely thought Bucky was going to shove his feet off his lap.

He didn’t. He slowly slid off Sam’s socks, one-handed and with what he hoped was gentle fingers. Sam watched him. Bucky dug his thumb into the arch of Sam’s foot. He didn’t know what he was doing.

“Bucky,” Sam said, sounding a bit confused but he threw his head back and made a small sound as Bucky continued to massage his foot. “Yeah, that’s the spot.” 

Bucky did it again and Sam chuckled, it was breathy and light and Bucky wanted to hear it again and again. “How are you good at this.” 

“I don’t know,” Bucky shrugged. “Beginners luck.” 

Sam smiled and Bucky went on in silence for a few minutes, switching to the other foot, before Sam’s feet returned to the floor. Sam patted his thigh. “I’ll repay the favor.” 

Bucky can’t deny Sam anything let alone a chance for Sam to touch him. It’s just his feet but Bucky can’t get over the feeling of kind hands on him. He’s used to hands that pull and tug and use. That slap and hit and shove. He brought his feet up to rest on Sam’s lap. 

Sam’s hands are calloused. He has two of them which makes the whole process go fast and works through any stiffness in Bucky’s feet. Bucky bit his lip to hold back any embarrassing sounds. 

“Your feet are cold,” Sam informed him. 

Sam’s hands were warm. “I noticed that.”

Sam’s hand moved to his ankle. “Also cold,” Sam is speaking like the narrator on the shark documentary but with a teasing edge.

“I think it’s a side effect of al the cyro,” Bucky can’t hold back the shudder as Sam kept exploring. “And the serum they gave me makes it hard for me to regulate my body temperature.” 

“That must suck.” 

Bucky shrugged. “I’m used to it.” 

“Still.”

  
  


The next touch was far too intimate for Bucky to keep control—to not let himself do something stupid like kiss Sam—and not intimate enough. 

Bucky woke up screaming. His hand held his skull like it could stop it from bursting. His head bowed down to press against the mattress. 

_ Please make it stop. _

He’d die rather than feel this pain again. Wipe and restart. 

_ Wipe it.  _

Rewrite, rewire his brain. His unsteady, unstable. Not useful. Nameless. Broken. He’s drowning in pain, over and over again. Wipe. They twist is DNA to choke him, make his cells turn knives on him. Make his body hurt itself to forget. 

“Bucky.” 

Nameless. 

“Bucky,” it’s closer and closer and it’s not a taunt. Far from it. It’s gentle and soothing and there is nothing in Bucky left for them to take. They own him. His mind, his body, his corrupt soul. But their hands grab for more, they cut up his brain, leave it in ribbons. 

Bucky is distantly aware that he’s sliding off a bed. A real bed and not a metal table. He closed his eyes and gripped the sheets and buried his head in the side of the mattress, in the covers.

“Bucky,” Sam’s breath is on his skin. Bucky’s eyes opened. He is shaking and shaking. He can’t stop. Everything is hazy, flickering and the world is an oil painting, smudged and dripping off the paper. Something inside him is screaming. A wounded animal’s cry 

Nothing makes sense, the past and present mix, and blur. He’s cold and warm. He’s floating and sinking. He’s Bucky and nameless. 

He just breathed. It was all he could do. The world started to snap back into focus. “Can I touch you?” Sam asked. 

Bucky kept his eyes closed. It was Sam and Sam would never hurt him. Bucky nodded. Sam took his hand and worked his way up Bucky’s arm and then back down. Up and down. Calming and consistent.

All the fight left Bucky, his fear eased under Sam’s hands. Sam’s hands moved to his shoulder and neck, they traced his jaw and wiped the tears he hadn’t known he’d shed. “Sam,” Bucky whispered, a million things to say but nothing came out.

“Shh,” Sam’s hand found his other shoulder, the one with no arm attached to it, the one covered in scar tissue, he usually wrapped it but it must have come off. 

“I’m sorry,” Bucky opened his eyes. 

“Don’t be,” Sam’s hands continued to work their magic. “Steve and the other’s are out.” 

“Doing what?” Bucky asked, begging silently for a distraction. 

“I’m not sure, I think we’re moving soon,” Sam’s hand stopped on his nub of a shoulder and the other stopped on his wrist. “I don’t know about you but I wouldn’t say no to beachside living.”

Bucky let Sam led him to sit back against the bed and Sam just took his wrist again with one hand and just held it. “Me either,” Bucky said, slowly the fog that covered the world turned to vapor and faded. 

“Maybe somewhere not in the middle of nowhere for a little bit,” Sam’s voice had it’s light edge back to it. 

“I’m good now, you can go back to sleep,” Bucky felt like his skin didn’t fit right but Sam didn’t need to be here. 

“Who said I was asleep,” Sam started to stand up, gently urging and leading Bucky to his feet. “Come on, I’ll show you something.” 

Bucky followed, his wrist still in Sam’s firm grasp. Sam led him down the hall and into the kitchen. He let go of Bucky’s wrist and took out two mugs and made them green tea with honey.

Bucky’s body was made of fault lines, he didn’t know which one would shatter him. He drifted far from his body. The smell of honey hit his nose and a warm mug was passed into his hand. Sam gave him a small smile and walked out onto the porch. He set his mug on the thick rail and leaned against it, his head was thrown back and his eyes set on the dark sky. 

It wasn’t all dark, patches of stars shone brightly high above. Constellations looked down on them and Bucky mirrored Sam’s position. He didn’t look at the stars. 

He looked at Sam. 

Standing there he looked like a grounded bird gazing back to his home in the wind. He had his wings here but using them would draw attention. 

“Did you know that the sun is actually pretty small star,” Bucky said, maybe Sam was desperate for something to take his mind off everything. “There are stars out there up to hundreds of times the size of the sun. There are small, dense neutron stars that are the collapsed core of big stars that remain after a supernova. The star was big but not big enough to make a black hole when it collapsed.”

“How do you know that?” Sam turned his gaze from the stars back to Bucky.

“Shark documentaries aren’t the only ones on.” 

They stood out there for a while, looking up at the stars, drinking their hot tea and Bucky recalling all the facts he could think of about space.

The sun, 92.96 million miles away, started to rise. 

  
  


Bucky woke up covered in sweat after yet another nightmare of jumbled events that he didn’t know if they were fact or fiction.

Bucky walked out into the kitchen just as Wanda and Sam entered the house, they’d gone out for a long drive to talk and eat take out. People need some time away from his safehouse. 

Wanda gave him a small smile. “Hi,” she mumbled and rushed past him for the bathroom. Bucky held out his wrist in what he hoped was a clear invitation. Sam took it. He crossed the small kitchen and traced the inside of Bucky’s wrist with his thumb.

“It’s the anniversary of her parent’s death, she just needed to get out. I’m not here to be anyone’s therapist, I’m too close to all of you but she just needed an ear.” 

Bucky couldn’t hold back the shudder as Sam’s fingers curled a bit tighter around his wrist. “She’s a good kid.” 

“She is,” Sam said, rubbing soothing circles on Bucky’s skin. “She’s gone through a lot.” 

Bucky closed his eyes and Sam’s hand linked him to reality. “I keep having the same nightmare over and over again.” 

“Want to talk about it?” Sam asked, not at all pushing. He isn’t used to being asked questions he has a choice of answering. 

“I can’t,” Bucky said. 

“Okay,” Sam led him back out onto the porch “What’s the closest galaxy?” Sam asked as he leaned against the rail.

“You should sleep.” 

“Tell me anyway.” 

“Andromeda,” Bucky placed himself behind Sam and his hand hovered over Sam’s shoulder. To touch is a lot like being touched. It’s grounding, it dug anchors in Bucky and chained him down to Earth. “Can I?” 

Sam looked back at him and nodded. Bucky started to work out the knots in Sam’s shoulders, he started slowly—he’s read a few articles and watched videos on how to massage—using his thumb, he only has one hand so things are a bit different but he hopes he’s making it work.

“What’s Andromeda like?” Sam asked as he rolled his neck out. 

“It’s bigger than the Milky Way, it has a bigger supermassive black hole at its center and eventually it’s collide with the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy,” Bucky switched to focus on Sam’s other shoulder. “Before the black holes eat each other which will take a long time all the stars and planets and dust will collide forming a hybrid galaxy that the combined black holes will eventually devour the combined galaxy.”

Sam nodded and looked back up at the stars. “It makes me, us, the whole planet feel so small when you think about what’s out there.”

“It’s oddly soothing isn’t it?” Bucky’s hand forgot what it should be doing in favor of just resting there, his fingertips brushing against Sam’s neck, on his bare skin. 

“It can be,” Sam concluded.

  
  


Touch is complex. Friends touch each other. Are there limits to platonic touch? Is as grounding hand on Bucky’s wrist something more. Is a brush of Sam’s body against as he reaches across Bucky something more. 

It’s too much and not enough. He wants Sam as close as he can have him and far enough away that he can’t. He’s damaged, his brain isn’t his own, his body never will be again, Hydra has sunken into his nerves and cells and branded their mark on them. A hydra may be a monster in myths but Hydra always was a virus, tricking cells into thinking it’s not harmful and using them to produce more infected cells.

Bucky used to be sturdy, a rock to counter Steve’s unsteady life. Now he’s unsteady and Hydra stole his ability to lean on others.

Sam touched him more, he had unspoken permission to do so. He always gave Bucky time to deny him but Bucky never did.

A hand on his knee when they fly to a new covert SHIELD safehouse, an old one in the middle of Oklahoma. Bucky knows there eventually going to run out of safehouses. 

Touch used to have a price, warm hands on him had a cost. The cost he tries not to think about as it slowly comes back to him in flashes and glimpses. 

The new place has a very small porch but a large deck in the back to blend in. It also only has two bedrooms. Nat and Wanda sleep in one and the guys take the other. They have cots and Bucy doesn’t mind until Steve is talking about the past. 

“I don’t remember,” Bucky said. “Apparently all the bad stuff comes back before any of the good stuff.” 

Steve looked away. 

“There is actually a lot of scientists,” Sam said from his cot, slowly sitting up. “Who think we recall bad memories easier and in more detail for evolutionary reasons—you don’t want to forget what berry made you throw up.” 

“Where’d you learn that.”

“You’re not the only one who watches documentaries.” Bucky couldn’t see Sam but he could hear the smirk in his voice. “Fear and stress and sadness increase activity in the parts of the brain that control memory and recall.” 

Steve was watching them with an odd expression. 

“Female lions are the primary hunters for the pack,” Bucky hadn’t watched any space stuff today in favor for some animal programs. “They are actually very tactful, when they work in groups, everyone has a fitting job. The usually cause a stampede to get the weakest then they work together to chase down the prey and take it down.”

Sam chuckled. “I already knew that.” 

“Of course you did,” Bucky leaned against the headboard. “Did you know that a deep sea fish has a clear head and these funky-ass eyes.”

Sam hummed, a noncommittal sound that could mean anything but Bucky just knew it meant that he didn’t know that and it was cool. “Deep sea fish are weird, man.”

“Apparently aliens are real, too,” Bucky shook his head—that has been a shock. “Life is so weird now.” 

“Amen to that.”

Bucky had almost forgotten about Steven when he whispered, “What the fuck.” 

Bucky’s cot is close enough to Sam’s then when he holds his wrist out Sam takes it. 

  
  


“Get up, lazy bones,” Sam shoved Bucky’s shoulder. “We’re going on a drive.” 

Bucky had been pretending to be sleeping all night. He looked at the clock. “It’s four A.M, where are we going?” 

“Nowhere, get dressed.” 

Steve groaned in his sleep and Bucky opened his mouth, Sam put a finger to Bucky’s lips. Bucky’s breath was shaky as it went around Sam’s finger. “Be stealthy,” his whispered and left the room. 

Bucky did as Sam said. He left quietly to find Natasha sitting on the couch watching the  _ Golden Girls  _ on the small TV. Sam was in the bathroom. Natasha noticed him, of course she did. 

“Sleep well?” she asked, sarcasm laced in every word. 

“Perfectly.” 

Natasha turned her eyes back to the screen. She wasn’t like him, she knew how to fit into the world, she knew what masks to wear. She was a chameleon spy and she knew each color. “Take care of him,” she whispered. 

“Sam?” Bucky asked, just a quiet. 

On the TV Sophia cracked a one liner. “He’s like us, he puts up a good front.” 

The bathroom door opened and Sam stepped out. He nodded at Natasha and went for the squeaky door.

“Have fun boys,” Natasha called from the living room. “Use protection.” 

Bucky gave her a sharp look but she didn’t look back. 

They got into the old car they bought and Sam started to drive south. The sky was cloudy and the moon’s face nowhere to be seen.

Sam turned on the radio and some singer crooned on about love and loss to a smooth beat. “My mom loves telling me the story of my first months on this earth,” Sam said as they drive on a dirt road with weeds reaching for the sky. “I was a crier, like screaming crying and my parents did everything they could to calm me. Rocking me, singing. All of it. Singing and playing music usually worked but one day I wouldn’t stop crying and no matter what they tried I wouldn’t nap.

“So you know what they did? They took me in the car because they could think of nothing else and at first it didn’t work. Then they put down the hood—it was an old cadillac that my mom loved—and I started to calm down. My mom started to drive a bit faster and I was fully silent.” 

Sam lowered all the windows. The cool night air seeped into the car. Sam took a long, slow breath. “As I got older me and my mom would go out for drives when I would get upset or we would fight. She’d drive as fast as she could with the top down and it would make everything easier. It still works to this day. I figured we both could use some calming right now.”

Bucky took an equally deep breath. Doubting every second, he moved slowly for Sam’s hand that was on the armrest. Sam was looking at the road and Bucky hovered his hand over Sam’s for a second. Two. Three. 

The wind blew through the windows. The engine hummed, the wheels spun and spun. 

Four. Bucky put his hand over Sam's. Sam looked over at him. Bucky met his eyes and slowly, agonisingly slow, their fingers and palms twisted to interlock. 

Sam hit the breaks, not taking his eyes off Bucky. “What...what are we doing?” 

Sam adjusted in his seat. “We’re sitting in a car in the middle of nowhere.” 

Bucky closed his eyes. It was all too much. His control was fracturing. Sam deserved better but he seemed to have the words to unlock everything in Bucky, unlock his damaged heart. Bucky felt like a star before a supernova, all that energy and matter heating up and the core of the star undergoing gravitational collapse. He is being pulled down by an immovable force, he’s folding down to his core, crumbling with this weight, this force. And he’s ready to burst.

“Sam,” Bucky said, it was all he could say. 

“Bucky.” 

Bucky shifted in his seat to fully face Sam. Above them, past the clouds and the layers of the atmosphere, past the bounds of their solar system were billions of flaming stars, planets far away holding life and black holes sucking in everything into an abyss. They were so small. Specks. Atoms compared to everything else. 

But Sam wasn’t nothing, he a force to be reckoned with, he was amazing and beautiful and a bit of a bastard at the best of times. He was hero.

“Were you going to say something,” Sam said, cheeky and with a bright smile on his face. Almost like he’s laughing. 

He’s not laughing as Bucky leaned forward the final few inches (light-years, they feel like light-years) and pressed their lips together. Bucky is out of practice and their in an awkward position. It’s not perfect like it is in the movies but under it all is fire. A supernova finally let go. 

They part out of breath and Bucky kept his eyes downcast. For some reason, he can't look. He’s still leaking out fire, heated particles, and unbonded atoms. 

All the times his handlers—or anyone with high enough clearance—would make him do what they wanted it was never a kiss. He can’t remember his last one. It’s lost in the broken pieces of his brain. 

“If you say something stupid—like _ ‘I’m sorry’ or ‘I can’t do this because I’ll hurt you’ _ —I’ll take it back.” 

Words died on Bucky’s tongue. “How would you do that?” 

Sam smirked and stole another kiss, small and chaste. “Like,” Sam pressed another kiss to Bucky’s pliant lips. “This.” 

“That doesn’t make much sense.”

“Shut up.”

“You shut up,” Bucky would admit it was a dumb comback but it was all he could some up with. 

Sam smirked and turned the engine back on. “If you distract me and we crash I’ll haunt your ass.” 

“I could die too,” Bucky protested and Sam seemed to be the only one with distracting in mind because he rested his hand on Bucky’s knee. And he didn’t remove it. 

It was just his knee. Why did it send his mind into a tailspin? They’d kissed and still every soft touch Sam gave him unrailed Bucky. 

Sam did drive back the house but down more twisting roads. The radio played on and the moon revealed its face as the cloud coverage slowly disappeared. 

“I thought the worst part about being on the run would be the fear of getting caught,” Sam’s thumb rubbed small circles on Bucky’s knees. Bucky was starting to think touching him calmed Sam as much as him. “But I just miss my family, I won’t call them, I can’t risk it. I won’t put them in that position.” 

“I can’t imagine.”

“I would die for my mom's lasagna, no offence to any of you but none of us can cook anything worth a dime,” Sam took a deep breath. “Tell some stupid sceince facts.”

Bucky told him about the ever expanding universe and how one day it’ll run out of energy to expand and then it’ll start to collapse on itself. Or if it remains at a certain dentistry it’ll run out of heat and freeze. 

Sam drove on and on. Then he started to talk. “My sister loved to run and she’s a few years older than I am. So when I was a kid, she was super cool. She taught me how to run faster and faster and she told me there is no same in running from a fight. Especially one you know you can’t win.”

“We can’t win this one.” 

“Vision had this whole equation. There number of catastrophic events has gone up since Tony became Iron Man, our existence—The Avenger’s existence—invites challenge. Challenge invites conflict and conflict breeds catastrophe.” 

“You’re saying there is going to be another catastrophe.” 

Sam gripped the steering wheel. “I’m saying nothing, no laws, will keep me from helping people when it happens.”

“Is that what’s been keeping you up?” 

“This is my purpose and as much as I want to rest, to hang up my wings something deep inside me won’t let me.” 

“I’ll be by your side.”

“I’m not asking you to, I just thought it’s something you should know. There isn’t going to be a picket white fence in our future.”

Most likely two graves. 

“I know,” Bucky whispered. A singer on the radio sang about being crazy in love.  _ So crazy for loving you.  _ “It’s a good thing I think picket white fences are a bit tacky.” 

Sam laughed. “You’re stupid.” 

“So are you.” 

SHIELD safehouses aren’t an option anymore. Money came from Nat’s offshore back accounts and cash buried for emergencies by paranoid Hydra members. 

“It’s here,” Bucky repeated for the seventh time. The thing with that Hydra money was you had to dig up the safe. “The coordinates are locked in my brain.” 

Wanda started to use her magic to dig but it was unstable, it burst to high and kept hiccuping. Natasha put her hand on Wanda’s shoulder and she lowered her arms. 

“Sorry.” 

“Has that been happening a lot?” Steve dug his shovel into the third hole. Wanda nodded. “Why?

“I don’t know,” Wanda crossed over the hole-covered ground to pick up a shovel. 

It was a humid day in Argentina and the air seemed to drape a wet blanket over them all. It was a dog’s bark that set them all on high alert. 

Wanda’s magic hung like whips in the air. A wave of red spilled from her hands. Everyone shared a look and a flashlight illuminated that dark field they stood on. They all bolted. 

Sam swore under his breath. Their feet squished on the damp ground and they flooded into the neighboring town. They ducked into an alley between two brick buildings. Another burst of red came from Wanda’s hands. 

“I’m sorry.” 

“Don’t be sorry, wipe that fearful look off your face,” Natasha brushed the dirt off her jeans and out off her blonde-dyed hair. “The best way to avoid anyone's notice is to blend in.” 

“Do we have any money left?” Sam asked. 

Steve nodded. “Enough.” 

“Keep your heads down but not noticeably down,” Natasha took off her hoodie and shoved it in the duffle bag. “We stop at the first hotel.” 

Everyone nodded and slipped into the crowd. It was bustling and filled with the low hum of chatter and engines. They made it to a hotel with no interruptions. 

Wanda didn’t look so good, white as a sheet with her jaw clenched and fists curled. Bucky watched as Sam took her hand—it wasn’t romantic at all—and gave her a small smile. 

The lady at the front desk smiled at them. She spoke to Natasha in Spanish. There were only three bedrooms open. Natasha said it was fine. 

Three keys were slid across the desk and Bucky couldn’t help but feel like something bad was about to happen. The feeling doesn’t go away, the word is flickering like a bad radio signal. 

“Bucky,” Natasha whisper yelled in the hallway. “Should you take the one bed?” 

Steve is giving him a weird look. 

“No.”

“Okay,” Natasha doesn’t ask for more. “Wanda and I will share a bed, if that’s alright with you?” she turned to Wanda. 

Wanda was hugging herself, looking small and impossibly scared. She just nodded. 

“I’ll take the single bed,” Steve winked at Natasha and nodded at Bucky and Sam. “I don’t think me and Buck would even fit.” 

Natasha smirked and handed Sam a key and they entered room 13. Sam chuckled as he set down the key and slid off his jacket.

“So Steve knows, did you tell him?” 

Bucky shook his head and checked to make sure the window was locked shut. He felt something behind him but when strong arms wrapped around his waist, he knew it was Sam. 

“I’m not gonna say we’re safe because we really aren’t but,” Sam rested his chin on Bucky’s shoulder. “We can handle it.” 

Bucky felt stupid. Weak. Helpless. Sam wasn’t his therapist. He shouldn’t have to see Bucky like this. Sam kissed and nipped at Bucky’s neck and lit that all consuming fire under Bucky’s skin. Each touch of his lips against Bucky unraveled him further. 

If only Sam knew how easy it was for him to take Bucky apart. 

“We should try and sleep,” Sam murmured into Bucky’s skin.

Bucky opened and closed his mouth. His feelings were twisted mess. A tangle of live wires sparking and screaming. It was complicated and simple. “I’m scared.” 

Sam didn’t call him weak—he never would. “So am I. It’s the name of the game.” 

“If we’re both scared then what do we do?” 

“Wow, I’m with an idiot,” Sam’s voice was light and teasing and so where the nips he left on Bucky’s skin. “Our fear cancels itself out.” 

Bucky saw what Sam was doing but he didn’t care as he turned around in Sam’s arms. “Really?” 

“Yeah. I guess you still have a lot to learn.” 

Bucky felt like this hotel was a glass palace and could fall and shatter with a strong wind. He’s been numb for so long but now that he knows people and cares about them the numbness is fading into fear. 

Bucky laid down on his back on the bed and Sam curled against him and stole his covers. “Move over, you ogre.” 

Bucky didn’t. “What did you call me.” 

“What you are,” Sam shoved him and Bucky didn’t move. Sam shimmed against Bucky and the sheets. 

“Stop moving.” 

“Not all of us can sleep flat on our backs like a hooligan.” 

Bucky turned on his side to mirror Sam. “Happy?”Bucky really shouldn’t let Sam win so easily but Sam gave him a kiss for his surrender so it’s a win-win. 

“Do you think aliens stay away from our galaxy because it’s a dumpster fire?” 

Sam rolled over to face away from Bucky. “Try to sleep.” 

“I thought you liked my stupid facts?” 

“There is a time and a place. Let me get my beauty sleep.” 

  
  


Sam didn’t wake up screaming but all night he moves. He kicks and reaches for something not there.

Bucky doesn’t want to sleep. So he tends to Sam in all the ways he can. He pulled the blanket back up to Sam’s shoulder. He untangled Sam’s arm. He whispered facts into the darkness. It seemed to soothe Sam while he was awake.

He told Sam about octopuses’ intelligence. 

About how the highest roller coasters in the world works. 

As dawn breaks Sam’s eyes open as Bucky laments about quasars.

“Did you sleep at all?” Sam asked, shutting up Bucky quickly. “I remember telling you sleep.” 

The voices of his handlers pound on his head. Tony Stark’s look of devastation and betrayal.“I can’t.”

“But you need to.”

“I’ll be fine. 

  
  


Bucky wasn’t fine and everyone knew it. 

They dug up the cash and got back on the quinjet. They flew into Belgium overnight. The stars were blocked by night pollution but Bucky felt their phantom presence. 

The hotel was nice enough, everyone had a bed. But Bucky still slid into Sam’s. Sam didn’t say a word, he wrapped Bucky in his arms and held him. Bucky still couldn’t sleep. And Neither could Sam. “Distract me,” Sam said, a quiet plea. 

Bucky swallowed, something in his jaw clicked. The clock ticked, music played downstairs, something slow with the piano. “Everyone in the world, everyone who ever lived, could fit into a sugar cube if we remove the empty pace, because, shocker, we’re made up of a lot of empty space.”

“That’s so trippy.” 

  
  


Sam is like a frozen lake, on the surface everything is strong and sturdy. But under, under a thick layer of ice, things are not so. Under the ice there are monsters looking, waiting for a break in the ice.

Rental cars are worth their weight in gold for how much Sam loved them. He opened all the windows and just drove, no place in mind, just to feel the cut of the wind, to smell scents in the air. The pine and nectar. 

Bucky doesn’t have any facts on his tongue but Sam doesn’t want them. Music played low from the speakers, crackling and backed with static. “Riley died five years ago today.”

Bucky watched Sam take his eyes off the road to stare and the endless fields deep in the Netherlands. “I’m sorry.” 

“I still remember it like it was yesterday,” Sam gripped the steering wheel tight enough to break. “I just watched, I couldn’t do anything. All the training in the world and I couldn’t save him. Maybe if the roles were reversed I could’ve but I was never as good as Riley at flying, God if you’d have seen him,” Sam shook his head. “It was like he was made to fly as well as any bird. I remember training with him, he was natural but it took me far longer to get the hang of it.”

The car lapsed into silence for a while and Bucky opened and closed his mouth a few times, trying to find the right words. Bucky was never good with words and slowly put his hand on Sam’s knee.

“I was so mad,” Sam continued. “Not at Riley for dying but at the universe for taking him. I had lost almost everything in one moment. My purpose, my best friend, my love for service.”

“It’s okay to still be mad,” Bucky said. He was no expert but he knew well enough that feelings were messy. “It’s okay to feel anything. I’m still mad at Hydra.” 

“Deep down I know that, I even tell that to others but it’s hard to take my own advice when it all feels too  _ raw.  _ When that feeling of helplessness sets in.”

“Stop the car,” Bucky said, hoping that for once Sam will listen to him. Sam does pull over and stop the car, looking at Bucky expectantly. 

“I’m not good with words. I’m not all that good at feelings because I’m not sure what’s me or what’s Hydra or what’s both.” Bucky closed his eyes and took Sam’s hand, still marveling that Sam let him touch him. “But I know that your never helpless, I distinctly remember you breaking my ribs on the bridge.” 

Sam didn’t met his eyes. “It’s easier to be kind to others than yourself.”

“Sam look at me,” Bucky urged and let go of Sam’s hand to tilt his jaw up. “You deserve all the kindness in the world. But people don’t always get what they deserve and you deserve so much more than this.” Bucky will never be able to get one image out of his head, Sam standing on the porch in Montana, framed in the starlight, gazing up at the sky like it’s his home. “And if you won’t be kind to yourself I’ll have to do it for you.”

Sam chuckld dryly. “You’re right, you’re terrible with words.” 

Bucky laughed and leaned closer. “Can I kiss you.” 

“We need to stop kissing awkwardly in cars,” Sam said and kissed him away. 

  
  


Bucky didn’t know what he should feel when certain things happen. Should he be sad when he found out his sister and two brothers are dead. Should he mourn his parents who he hardly remembers aside from the smell of oil on his dad’s fingers and clicking of his mom’s heels, hazy moments he isn’t sure are real.

A kiss on his forehead. Warm arms around him, scratchy knit sweaters. Is it real or fake, an illusion in his mind, he can’t tell. And he doesn’t want to. 

They sprung for a hotel in Amsterdam. It has a balcony and he and Sam find their way to it, as if drawn to it like magnets. They both look up at the cloudy, starless sky.

“I don’t know how to feel,” Bucky told the sky, somehow easier than looking at Sam’s eyes and all their infinite kindness. 

“About what?” Sam asked. Bucky could feel the eyes on him. 

“The past, I don’t know if I should feel over people I don’t remember,” Bucky shook his head. “I don’t remember much about my family. I should miss them, love them, but I don’t. It’s like there is his hole in me that will never be fixed no matter what Steve says about time.”

“Time heals all wounds,” Sam said. “But you don’t have to feel anyway about anything. You feel what you feel and you can’t change that.” 

“How do you always know what to say?” 

“Because I’m just that smart,” Sam said, he was joking but damn he was smart. “And good lookin’. I’m quite the catch.” 

“I’ve caught better,” Bucky said couldn’t control his cheeky smile.

Sam raised an eyebrow. “Must not have kissed them.”

“I’m not that bad.” 

Sam shrugged. “Not  _ that bad.  _ But if you want to get with me you gotta be better than that.” 

Bucky pouted and tugged Sam closer by the wrist. “Is this your crazy way of saying you want to kiss me.” 

“You need practice,” Sam left a feather-light kiss on Bucky’s lips. “I’m doing the world a service.” 

Bucky leaned into another kiss, this one deeper. “My hero, so selfless.” 

  
  


He felt like a woman in one of those sad movies when her husband or best friend dies when the wind hit him, throwing his hair back. He liked documentaries but sometimes he just needed a good movie to watch. 

Sam, Wanda, and Nat were on the South African beach, Cape Town, running with the waves. The heat was blazing and the few people there milled around, no one in any rush. Bucky usually felt like he was floating far from his body, the only thing that could bring him back easily was Sam.

He didn’t have to be anyone with Sam. He kept his eyes on Sam as they all stepped into the ocean, wild smiles on their faces. 

Steve came up to stand beside him, far up on the beach, the wind blowing against them. “I don’t know how it happened but you two just work.” 

Bucky looked at Steve, no longer the frail scrawny kid he half remembered. “It’s...nice.” 

Steve nodded. “I’m happy for you, Buck. You deserve it.” 

“You deserve better,” Bucky said before he could take it back, because now they had to address the elephant in the room. He wants to say they found their rhythm but they aren’t even close. He and Steve keep missing notes, Bucky doesn’t even know the song. Steve thinks Bucky can replace the hole that was left when he fell from the train but he’ll never be that Bucky again. 

They used to fit together like puzzle pieces, brothers in all but blood but now the world has chewed them up and spit them out. And Steve’s memories of him are like a weight on his chest, a sword over his head. He can’t take the expectations, even if Steve means well when he says Bucky will remember. 

“What?”

“I’m not the Bucky you lost and I never will be.” 

“I know that,” Steve turned away from him to stare at the waves crashing along the shore. “It’s just hard to let go. But I don’t want to lose you, Bucky. What every version of you I have.” 

“I’m not going anywhere,” he let his eyes go back to Nat, Wanda, and Sam in the water, splashing each other and laughing. “This is my family.” 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading, don't hesitate to drop a kudos or comment they bring me endless joy and motivation


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